With releases on Miasmah, Sonic Pieces, Immune, Slaapwel, Low Point and Secret Furry Hole, it seems a pretty logical step for Cambridge-based multi-instrumentist and sound artist Simon Scott to release an album on Taylor Deupree’s excellent 12K, but Below Sea Level, Scott’s third solo full length in four years is much more than a simple collection of tracks. Everything about it, from the music itself and the numerous field recordings used to the cover image and the journal that accompanies it, was inspired by or sourced from the Fens, a low-lying marshland region spreading from Boston and King’s Lynn to the North, Peterborough to the West to Cambridge to the South and the North Sea to the East.

Scott spent two years criss-crossing this vast flat area, which at times spreads below sea level, hence the album title, with a wealth of recording equipments to capture some of its sounds and atmospheres, then added treated guitars and drones to create a stark, yet rich, collection of airy soundscapes and dreamy sequences. Continue Reading »

Two years on from his stunning debut album, Navigare, Simon Scott returns to Erik Skodvin’s Miasmah with a much more ambitious follow up, where he revives some elements of the shoegaze he helped map out as a member of Slowdive nearly two decades ago, and weaves them together with atmospheric late night jazz and decaying ambient sequences.

Following his departure from Slowdive, after the band’s seminal second album, Souvlaki, Scott went on to perform with Lowgold for a while and later on formed Seavault, with ISAN’s Antony Ryan, and Televise, under which banner he released a number of albums between 2005 and 2008. Navigare represents however a watershed in Scott’s career as he finally stepped out in the limelights and fully assumed his position as a solo artist. Continue Reading »

In recent years, Simon Scott has produced some particularly haunting instrumental pieces, but for the inaugural release on Sonic Piece’s new seven-part series of lusciously packaged seven inch singles due to be released in the next few months, he has opted for a different approach. Recorded in his own studio in Cambridge and at Nils Frahm’s Durton studio in Berlin, and the result of a series of health scares which eventually proved false alarms, the two songs that make this release are delicate folk songs miles apart from the haunting textured soundscapes of his previous works.

This time last year, Belgian imprint Slaapwel Records teamed up with Peter Broderick for two very unusual gigs where the audience was invited to sleep over at the STUK in Leuven, Belgium, while Broderick and two other musicians played music throughout the night. Sleep, more precisely falling asleep has been the sole concern of Slaapwel, who have been releasing music designed specifically for that purpose for over three years now, with contributions from the likes of Machinefabriek, Jasper TX, Steinbrüchel, Greg Haines or Peter Broderick.

The latest to join this sleep brigade is Simon Scott, who follows his rather impressive solo debut, Navigare, released last year on Miasmah, and a couple of limited releases for Secret Furry Hole and Immune earlier in the year with Silenne, a record which, as described by Scott himself, was inspired by his propensity to fall asleep in the sunshine whilst listening to music. Continue Reading »

Originally the project of Porto-based musician Bruno Miguel Pereira Pinto, :Papercutz soon expanded to incorporate vocalist Melissa Veras, with other musicians joining the pair for live performances. Released two years ago on Canadian imprint Apegenine, Lylac, the band’s first album, bridged the gap between stark atmospheric electronica and elegant contemporary pop music to create a superb hybrid, served by Pinto’s delicate blend of acoustic instrumentation, electronic textures and beats on one side, and by Veras’s softly ethereal vocal tones, occasionally reminiscent of Anneli Drecker, on the other. The album was followed by a single, Ultravioleta, which featured remixes by The Sight Below, Neotropic, Spandex and Signer. This is partly what encouraged Pinto to let other musicians give their own vision of his work. The resulting collection of remixes, published on Audiobulb, features reworks by Helios, Simon Scott, Taylor Deupree, He Can Jog, Autistici, Astroboy, Chris Bissonnette, Jasper TX, Rameses III, Emanuele Errante and Feu Follet. Continue Reading »

Twelve months compiled into just twenty albums. From the thousands of records released each year, it is difficult to get even a handful on the site, and even more difficult to decide which ones were the best of the lot. This is however the twenty albums that have marked 2009 for themilkfactory.

Once a member of early nineties daydream shoegazers Slowdive, for whom his manned the drums for four years, Simon Scott has since worked on a variety of projects, including, in recent years, atmospheric pop/electronic outfit Televise, and, more recently, Seavault, a collaboration with ISAN’s Antony Ryan. He is also at the helm of experimental imprint Keshhhhhh Recordings, which he runs from his native Cambridge.

For his first release under his own name, Scott couldn’t have found a label more adapted to the vast atmospheric stretches of Navigare than Erik Skodvin’s bleak house of Miasmah. Continue Reading »